Obituary to a dearly departed Dead Duck

It is with great sadness that we say goodbye to our beloved Pawa. She has stood/sat proud and tall over our main street watching the comings and goings of daily life and travellers.

But no more.

Her decline started when one or two 'loud mouths' in our community started to belie her... saying that she was ugly and an embarrassment.

But who in all honesty can say that a bathtub toy is ugly?

Would we buy ugly toys to give to children to play in their bathtubs with?

I think not.

Perhaps this negativity comes from these people’s own early childhood experiences in the bathtub…

Perhaps they had a bad experience with a little yellow duck which they don’t want to remember. And perhaps it is because of these memories which they struggle to keep repressed that they have something against our bigger version of this duck... the beautiful Pawa.

This year would have been Pawa's tenth birthday, and it is sad to lose someone so young. She barely had time to shake the water from her golden plumage before the negativity started by these few discontents spread throughout our Council until every one of our Councillors was poisoned against her claiming that Pawa had had her day and had to go.

Pawa had done nothing to these people. She sat proudly on her stand in the main street and exclaimed to the world "We are here!" "You are now in the town of Waipawa – A place where people smile, and fun is loved!"

And people noticed her.

They smiled too... Or they wondered...

But isn't it better to wonder, than to just fade away into nothingness?

So now... we, the people of Waipawa, are face-less. We have lost our symbol of fun and vitality... We have become a NOTHING town.

Once again we face anonymity of a small town with nothing to mark us as different from any other small town… and we mourn the loss of Pawa, the one thing that made us have an excuse to laugh…

Pawa I will miss you... Rest in peace.